Frost Birches

So was I once myself a swinger of birches. / And so I dream of going back to be," (lines 42-43). Robert Frost's poem "Birches" contrasts the playful fantasy of childhood with the mundane realities of science, the cold heaviness of winter with the light-filled warmth of summer. "Birches" is therefore filled with contrasting imagery and themes. The central motif of the poem, swinging, itself conveys the concept of traversing between opposites, swaying to extremes. For example, the narrator dwells on the iciness of winter and later, evokes summer by mentioning baseball (line 26). The arch of the birch tree contrasts sharply with the sturdiness of its trunk, which enables it to withstand the trials of winter. Comparing a young boy bending the boughs of a birch tree through vivid imagery, metaphor and a lyrical and relaxed tone, the narrator of Robert Frost's poem "Birches" creates a meandering journey between life's contrasts.

The birch itself is a tree of contrasts: the narrator describes its "black branches up a snow-white trunk," (line 56). Bending toward the ground, the birch unnaturally deviates from its task of growing upwards, toward the sky. The contrast between Earth and Heaven is central to Frost's poem. Bowed birch boughs convey sharp distinctions between symbolic realms of Earth and Heaven. "Earth's the right place for love," the narrator states; but the human being will always climb back "toward heaven," (lines 53; 57). Thus, the poet addresses directly the dualistic forces of Earth and Heaven in "Birches."

Structurally, "Birches" contains several distinct and contrasting elements, allowing the narrator to distinguish thematically between the opposing forces of reason and fantasy. The first half of the poem is "matter-of-fact about the ice-storm," (line 22). The ice is tangible, heavy, cold, and hard. Using a parenthetical and hypothetical question to segregate the reason from fantasy portions of the poem, the narrator spends the remainder of the poem describing the youthful playfulness of a young boy. Both the ice and the boy denote impermanence: the boy the impermanence of childhood, signified by his not bending the tree "to stay," and the ice denoting the impermanence of life itself, indicated by winter's deadly chill (line 4).

Works Cited

Frost, Robert. "Birches." 1920 Mountain Interval. Reproduced on Bartleby.com. Retrieved online 25 July 2005 at http://www.bartleby.com/119/11.html